Norcroft were converted into miners' houses, whilst Mr. Wilson made houses for his own workmen out of the farm buildings which are now "Collier Fold," being very desirous, let it be mentioned to his honour, that each cottage should have attached to it a good useful garden, as it still continues to have. The branch of the Aire and Calder Navigation Co.'s Canal at Barnby Basin was at this time the great shipping place for Mr. Jonas Clarke's Silkstone Coal, and for the arrival of lime, &c., for the whole district to the west.
Mr. Daniel Wilson succeeded the Low Moor Iron Co. in working the coal at Barnby Furnace after that company had had a colliery accident in which several lives were lost. The Low Moor Company may be said to have had some personal connection with Cawthorne through Mr. John Hardy, solicitor of Bradford, one of its first founders, in 1788, being agent for the Horsforth estate of the Mr. Walter Stanhope of that time. Mr. Hardy strongly advised Mr. Stanhope to invest in the company, but he declined as having "too many children to provide for." From Mr. Hardy's own happy adventure in it, his family have advanced to the highest position of wealth and social distinction, the present Right-Honorable Viscount Cranbrook being his grandson.
At the present time, the Barnby Furnace Colliery, now known as the Stanhope Silkstone, is the only one being worked in the Parish, the Parkgate seam being found at a depth of forty-seven yards, and the celebrated Silkstone seam, which is the only one being worked, at a depth of about seventy fathoms, having a thickness of about four feet six inches. The present lessee is Mr. G. A. Haworth: the output is about 400 tons a day. Mr. Stanhope works the same seam for private use by a small day-hole pit in Tivydale.
In the Census of 1881, the population of the present Parish is given as 1057, being 527 males and 530 females. There were 231 inhabited houses, 18 uninhabited, and 2 in course of being built. In that part of the Township which was included in the new Parish of Hoyland Swaine in 1869, there were 108 inhabitants, 63 males and 45 females, in 30 houses.
